Umbilical cord stem cells for pancreatic regenerative medicine

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in many countries and is considered as one of the epidemics of the twenty-first century. Current diabetes treatment is mostly based around daily insulin injection. Pancreas or islet transplantation first appeared as a good alternative, but lack of donor calls for more reliable clinical approaches. Recently, stem cell-based therapies have emerged as promising alternatives for pancreatic regenerative medicine. This chapter will review recent innovative clinical and preclinical applications used for diabetes treatment ranging from insulin injection to newly established cellular clinical trials with umbilical cord stem cells.